Lake and Wind (5)

...Without the Ghost Lake's suppression, soul summoning can revive me once. That's also one of the prerequisites for becoming a soul summoner...

...Even if he fails, the price isn't unacceptable to me. Having someone like him owe Taiping Ancient Town a favor would kill two birds with one stone...

After thinking for a moment, He Yin'er said to Fang Shiming, "Fang Shiming, remember to take my body to Taiping Ancient Town."

Fang Shiming froze for a moment, but then realized what this woman intended to do and nodded to her.

Without hesitation, He Yin'er leaped into the center of the quicksand, landing squarely on the dull, yellowed corpse. The instant her feet touched it, an unknown killing rule was triggered.

A cold, sticky sensation rushed over her, as though she had been wrapped in a mass of minced flesh. Sand and mud surged madly into her body. Coming into such close contact with the ghost at the source of the quicksand caused He Yin'er's entire body to sink rapidly into it.

She showed no panic whatsoever, carefully observing the corpse beneath her feet. Disregarding the horror of ghost revival, she frantically used the abilities of the ghost inside her, trying to uncover the true killing rule of this strange quicksand.

She sank quickly, and the quicksand had already reached her chest. He Yin'er suddenly felt the supernatural power inside her loosen for an instant. She wanted to try something else, but in her terrible condition, this was already her limit.

...He was right. It isn't suppression. The ghost inside me can still be used. I have to find a way to pass this information to him...

...But how? I'm sinking too fast...

He Yin'er's entire body had now sunk into the quicksand, leaving only her hands raised high above its surface. Her consciousness was slowly fading.

Fang Shiming had been watching He Yin'er's actions all along, watching as only her hands remained outside.

"Did she fail...?"

Just then, He Yin'er's left hand struggled to point toward her clenched right hand. Holding that position, she rapidly sank into the quicksand.

Fang Shiming's brows knitted tightly. He did not understand what information He Yin'er was trying to convey through this gesture.

"What is she pointing at...?"

Suddenly, he saw a faint golden glint.

"No! That's..."

Following the direction of her finger, Fang Shiming caught a fleeting glimpse of the gold watch on He Yin'er's right wrist.

The quicksand had already risen past Fang Shiming's chest.

"A watch? Gold?"

He Yin'er had been completely swallowed by the black-and-yellow quicksand. Only the gold watch still floated on its surface, carried slowly along by the quicksand.

"What is she trying to tell me...?"

Fang Shiming's mind raced through the possibilities. The quicksand was now almost up to his neck.

Carried along by the moving quicksand, the gold watch had reached Fang Shiming's side, but he still did not understand what He Yin'er wanted to tell him through this watch.

"Is it time... or direction...?"

Fang Shiming stared fixedly at the watch. Following the same path, the glittering gold watch had already circled him twice in the quicksand.

"Something's wrong... the direction this watch is moving..."

The quicksand had already risen past Fang Shiming's lips.

"The quicksand flows in an extremely regular pattern. Is she trying to tell me that direction is the key to escaping...?"

He tried moving his body along with the flow of the quicksand, but it remained utterly ineffective. The ghosts inside him were still dormant.

"No. There's too little information."

Unable to work out what information He Yin'er wanted to convey, Fang Shiming could only make one final attempt.

He would completely disregard ghost revival and use his ghosts' abilities without restraint. He wanted to gamble that, with his supernatural power fully unleashed, he could briefly invade this quicksand in return.

"Hm?"

Fang Shiming's finger suddenly twitched upward. He abruptly felt a momentary loosening, before immediately becoming rigid again.

"It was very brief... but I definitely moved..."

Along with Fang Shiming's momentary movement, a sudden breeze stirred the quicksand. Unfortunately, it fell still again after only an instant...

Yet this breeze was stronger than any previous use of Fang Shiming's supernatural power. Even the all-encompassing hurricane around him was blown backward.

It was as though... in that instant, his supernatural power had been used a dozen or more times simultaneously, then stacked together and released.

Fang Shiming's gaze sharpened. Something suddenly occurred to him.

"I understand! He Yin'er and I both fell into a ghost handler's mental trap. To avoid ghost revival, we instinctively shied away from recklessly using our ghosts' abilities."

"Especially with both of us in such terrible condition, that mental trap was magnified without limit..."

The quicksand had already covered Fang Shiming's eyes.

"He Yin'er must have pushed the ghost inside her to its limit just like I did, so the information she wanted to convey was... time!"

"Time is the key!"

The quicksand had completely submerged Fang Shiming.

"The ghosts inside my body have already started acting, but they've been delayed indefinitely at the instant of action."

Fang Shiming's consciousness was slowly fading...

"I can deduce that this quicksand can delay killing rules. That's why it could work together with the Ghost Lake at the bottom of the lake to suppress some ghosts with very high terror levels..."

Fang Shiming recalled the direction in which the gold watch had moved.

"And the path the watch followed is the key to breaking through this ghost's ghost domain!"

In the dark, oppressive surroundings, icy quicksand poured into his body from every direction. His body was filled with large quantities of cold quicksand and felt unbearably heavy.

Fang Shiming kept his eyes tightly shut. He had not died completely, and was silently analyzing and considering his next move.

"I fell into a ghost handler's mental trap just now, blindly assuming that recklessly using my ghosts' abilities would only kill me through ghost revival. But since the ghosts inside me have been delayed..."

"Then what if I do this?"

Slowly, something supernatural occurred, entirely defying logic and reason, departing from common sense.

No, rather, supernatural incidents were often precisely like this-existences entirely beyond human understanding, obeying no laws whatsoever.

Within this tightly packed quicksand, a breeze eerily began to blow...

The quicksand around Fang Shiming began flowing faster, following the very path he had seen the watch take.

"Right now, I'm at no risk of ghost revival. Even if I push my ghosts' abilities to the limit, this quicksand will delay them at the instant of action."

"Perhaps I can call this state... Supernatural Stacking."

Using the quicksand, Fang Shiming was attempting a different, bizarre method of Supernatural Stacking.

"As long as I correctly gauge the upper limit of this quicksand's supernatural power, I can escape and control this ghost."

Gales howled through the air. A pitch-black corpse lay at the very center of a stretch of black-and-yellow quicksand.

Suddenly, a current of air burst out from within the quicksand, sweeping up the entire stretch of quicksand to form a cold, black-and-yellow gale.

Strangely, this gale blew incredibly slowly, giving the impression of a film playing in slow motion.

Fang Shiming looked at the black-and-yellow gale blowing slowly around his body.

"It worked..."

What he had done was undoubtedly like stepping on his right foot with his left to climb into the sky. Using the quicksand's ability to delay revival indefinitely, he briefly stacked the Ghost Wind, then blew the quicksand into motion to merge it with the Ghost Wind.

Finally, he used the Ghost Sand in turn to delay the revival of the Ghost Wind and the Person-Pressing Ghost, making the Ghost Wind look as though it were playing in slow motion.

This was a different kind of supernatural power produced through fusion. It merely looked incredibly slow, but possessed all the characteristics of a complete ghost domain.

Sluggish, yet dangerous in the extreme...

Supernatural incidents were often just like this, unreasonable and contrary to logic.

A woman's corpse lay across the middle of the road.

"Once I've dealt with this incident, I'll make a trip to Taiping Ancient Town."

Fang Shiming stood expressionlessly nearby, his entire body incredibly stiff. A cold aura pervaded the space around him, making him seem like a corpse that could move.

Although he had successfully controlled the Ghost Quicksand and avoided ghost revival, the ghosts' erosion had grown even more severe. Something called emotion was slowly disappearing.

Sensing the changes inside him, the feeling of ghost revival had completely vanished, but Fang Shiming continued to feel out the changes in his body, exploring the connections between the three ghosts to avoid any unknown mutations.

Five minutes later.

A gale swept past, advancing toward the center of the hurricane in a way that defied intuition. Although it looked as though it were blowing extraordinarily slowly, it moved incredibly fast...